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Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Faith and the Whole Picture

I’ve been trying to avoid using the word ‘faith’ recently.
It just doesn’t get the message across. ‘Faith’ is a word that’s now misused
and twisted. ‘Faith’ today is what you try to use when the reasons are stacking
up against what you think you ought to believe. Greg Koukl sums up the popular
view of faith, “It’s religious wishful thinking, in which one squeezes out
spiritual hope by intense acts of sheer will. People of ‘faith’ believe the
impossible. People of ‘faith’ believe that which is contrary to fact. People of
‘faith’ believe that which is contrary to evidence. People of ‘faith’ ignore
reality.” It shouldn’t therefore come as a great surprise to us, that people
raise their eyebrows when ‘faith’ in Christ is mentioned. Is it strange that
they seem to prefer what seems like reason over insanity?

It’s interesting that the Bible doesn’t overemphasize the
individual elements of the whole picture of faith, like we so often do. But
what does the Bible say about faith? Is it what Simon Peter demonstrates when
he climbs out of the boat and walks over the water towards Jesus? Or is it what
Thomas has after he has put his hand in Jesus’s side? Interestingly, biblical
faith isn’t believing against the evidence. Instead, faith
is a kind of knowing that results in action. The clearest definition
comes from Hebrews 11:1. This verse says, “Faith is the assurance of things
hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” In fact, when the New Testament
talks about faith positively it only uses words derived from the Greek root
[pistis], which means ‘to be persuaded.’ In those verses from Hebrews, we find
the words, “hope,” “assurance,” “conviction” that is, confidence. Now, what
gives us this confidence?

Christian faith is not belief in the absence of evidence. It
is the proper response to the evidence. Koukl explains that, “Christian faith
cares about the evidence…the facts matter. You can’t have assurance for
something you don’t know you’re going to get. You can only hope for it. This is
why the resurrection of Jesus is so important. It gives assurance to the hope.
Because of a Christian view of faith, Paul is able to say in 1 Corinthians 15
that when it comes to the resurrection, if we have only hope, but no
assurance—if Jesus didn’t indeed rise from the dead in time/space history—then
we are of most men to be pitied. This confidence Paul is talking about is not a
confidence in a mere ‘faith’ resurrection, a mythical resurrection, a
story-telling resurrection. Instead, it’s a belief in a real resurrection. If
the real resurrection didn’t happen, then we’re in trouble. The Bible knows
nothing of a bold leap-in-the-dark faith, a hope-against-hope faith, a faith
with no evidence. Rather, if the evidence doesn’t correspond to the hope, then
the faith is in vain, as even Paul has said.”

So in conclusion, faith is not a kind of religious hoping
that you do in spite of the facts. In fact, faith is a kind of knowing that
results in doing, a knowing that is so passionately and intelligently faithful
to Jesus Christ that it will not submit to fideism, scientism, nor any other
secularist attempt to divert and cauterize the human soul by hijacking
knowledge.

Tom Price is an academic tutor at the Oxford Centre for
Christian Apologetics and a member of the speaking team at Ravi Zacharias
International Ministries in Oxford, England.

Published on JuLY 23, 2015 in A
Slice of Infinity. “Our gift and invitation to you, that you
might further examine your beliefs, your culture, and the unique message of
Jesus Christ.”

"Helping the thinker believe, helping the believer think." To learn more about Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, go
here. http://www.rzim.org/